Free ron Goulart - Challengers of the Unknown by Ron Goulart Page A

he gagged.
    The body was no longer a single entity. One of the hands Gallegher couldn't locate at all. The torso and head were, more or less, together.
    "What happened to him?" asked another of the men, not coming closer.
    "Animal got him," said Gallegher. "Clawed him to pieces."
    "His insides," murmured Ortega, "his insides are ..."
    Gallegher scraped his forefinger along one of the dead man's legs. A twist of slimy green material came off the shredded cloth of the pant leg. "Lake plant," he said, holding his finger out toward the others.
    Ortega was retching again, the other two men trying to avoid him without stepping any closer to the torn body.
    "PetroSur." Gallegher noticed the oil company name painted on the side of the mangled helicopter. "One of their troubleshooters ran into more than he could handle."
    "There's no animal," said Ortega, panting, "there's no animal in these jungles does that to a man."
    "Perhaps it did come from the lake." Gallegher slid his thumb over the shred of green water plant. He circled the torso and its impossibly twisted neck, scrutinizing the ground. "Yes, here are some interesting footprints."
    "Night's almost upon us," said Ortega. "Let's get back to our truck."
    "Not human footprints," said Gallegher. "No, these appear to have been made by the feet of a large, a very large, reptile."
    "Plenty of time tomorrow," urged Ortega. "We ought to leave here now, right now, before darkness catches us.
    "The pattern of these prints indicates the creature walked upright, on two of its feet." Gallegher detached a flashlight from his belt, clicked it on. "We'll follow his trail."
    The other two men produced flashlights.
    Ortega, after wiping at his sweating forehead with the back of his hand, did likewise. "All right, so long as we get away from this particular spot," he said. "The smell of . . . It's awful."
    Gallegher laughed. "All these years of indolence in a warm climate have softened you, Ortega," he observed as he began to follow the tracks on the jungle floor. "You didn't used to be so fearful."
    "I'm old," admitted Ortega. "Too old, inside. No more do I have the stomach for this kind of thing."
    The lake was turning black when they reached it. Incredibly wide, its farther shores were lost in the dusk. On this side, trees and a multitude of plants grew nearly to its edge; some intricately twisting roots extended out into the black waters of Lake Sombra. Swirls of pale mist were rising from the darkening surface.
    "If we're to believe the evidence of these very odd footprints," said Gallegher, the beam of his light shining on the mushy ground, "our reptile returned to the lake here after destroying the oilman."

Ortega said, "Then the stories are true."
    "All we've determined is that some sort of large reptile came here from the site of the wrecked plane," said Gallegher. "We haven't yet proved—"
    "What?" Ortega was staring at the jungle behind them. The daylight had abruptly gone. There were only stripes of darkness between the trees.
    Gallegher asked him, "Now what's alarming you?"
    "I heard . . . yes, listen!"
    The beams of all four flashlights turned toward the jungle, crisscrossing.
    There was a crackling and a thumping coming at them.
    Ortega tugged his .38 revolver out of its holster. "It's coming to get us, it's coming to get us." The circle of light from his flash was dancing from side to side.
    "Calm down, damn it," ordered Gallegher. He propped his light on the ground, unsnapped his rifle and settled the butt against his shoulder. He sighted through the nightscope, then exclaimed, "Good Cluist!"
    Gallegher saw it before any of the others.
    Another minute went by before the flashlights caught it.
    A man, but not a man. The body was roughly hu-manoid, a green scaly skin covering it. Green, streaked with slashes of pasty yellow. Ropy veins ran along the creature's sides, twisted across the wide, powerful chest. The hands were yellowish, each scaly finger tipped with a vicious black